Eurotrip finale: Lauterbrunnen

April 14, 2011

We left early in the morning for Lauterbrunnen. I slept for most of the train ride but when I opened my eyes I caught a few glances of the beautiful landscapes of snowy mountains and blue lakes outside the window.

We arrived in Lauterbrunnen - a tiny village settled in a valley of the Alps. The town was made up of a single grocery store, a post office, a couple of restaurants, and some cottages - presenting a drastic change of pace from the sequence of cities we had visited up until then. Snow-capped mountains and enormous rock faces, some with cascading waterfalls, encompassed the village. Admittedly, the waterfalls were the main reason we chose to stay in this particular town. 

Chickens freely hanging around

We arrived at Valley Hostel at the same time as a large Korean family (consisting of the parents, kids, and even the grandparents of those kids). We weren’t staying in a youth hostel this time, so having three generations under one roof was perfectly acceptable. Upon entering, we noticed a trend - postcards from Korea, pictures of Korean children and families, and small Korean flags decorated the walls of the main office where we checked in. As we progressed through the building, we encountered several more Korean people aged from about 8 to 80 - each from one of three large families that decided to vacation at this particular hostel. Before we got to our room, we hoped that we wouldn’t find one of the grandparents or 10-year-old children settling in with us. We were safe. Our room had a cozy appearance with bright, childish comforters with cartoon cows on them, a wooden floor, and wooden furniture. 

The room also had a balcony that looked out at the mountains in the backyard. There was no such thing as a bad view in this town.

The view from our balcony

We went outside to explore, making our way towards the waterfalls down the village's only road. 

I actually really like this shack's facade.

A notice providing reasons why people should not canoe down the shallow waterfalls.

After about an hour of admiring the nature around us, we stopped at one of the three restaurants back in the town for lunch. Everything on the menu was unjustifiably expensive. I got a sandwich and some variation of banana bread that was really good (albeit pricey). As we were munching on what must have been gold-infused food, a couple walked in wearing ski boots and snow gear and started chatting with the woman behind the counter about their day spent skiing. The conversation piqued my interest since I like to snowboard and I had assumed that the ski season had long passed (it being late April). Eric and I were the only ones in our small group who were winter sport enthusiasts, but the Swiss Alps were too accessible and tempting to reject. So, we inquired the location of the ski trails from the woman behind the counter.
Since our lunch had practically cleaned out our wallets, we went to the local grocery store afterwards to buy food for dinner. On the way, we made a necessary stop at a store along the street to buy some toblerones (we were in Switzerland for 3 days by that point and I had yet to buy chocolate - an absurd concept). Back at the hostel, we started to make dinner - pasta and pesto preceded by French bread and brie. 

Korean families dominated the kitchen and eating area, and a pungent smell of Korean food permeated the room. Out pasta appeared bland and basic compared to the extravagant, multi-ingredient feast that was being prepared in the pot next to ours. After dinner, Ali, Madeline, and I played a game of Scrabble while eating chocolate and drinking wine. The scrabble game was made for the German language, so Ä and Ü tiles were worth 6 points, and Z’s were worth a lousy 3 points. Our point system was seriously skewed. Eric declined participation to “read” but when we entered the hostel room, we found him passed out asleep at 7pm. We took full advantage of this by drawing on his face and putting various items on top of him like women's clothing. It was very entertaining. In a town with one pub and a population of about 50 people, one must turn to unconventional forms of evening entertainment like playing board games and drawing on people.

April 15, 2011

The next morning, Eric and I got up at the ripe hour of 7:30 am, destined to shred some snow on Schilthorn Mountain. Since the decision to go snowboarding was made only the day prior, and I hadn't anticipated even seeing snow on the trip, I didn't pack any warm clothing, gloves, or a hat. We went to a shop down the street to rent basically everything we needed, including snowpants. From the village center, we took a bus to Schilthorn mountain and then took a cable car to get to the base of the trails. As we waited for the cable car amongst seasoned skiers and Swiss natives sporting gore-tex from head to toe, we appeared as though we had never set foot on a mountain before with our evident lack of proper snow attire (especially since Eric was keeping it 'old school' in his jeans).  

Looking down from the cable car.

Passing by villages on the way up the mountain.

Getting closer to the top.

There were only two trails open, but I was hardly surprised given the time of season. Snowboarding on the wide-open, fluffy trails surrounded by immense mountain faces was the most thrilling feeling I had experienced in a while. 

The trail map (except all those trails at the bottom were closed).

See those small particles in the valley? Those are people.

The sun was shining and the air was warm - unfamiliar climate conditions to be exposed to while sensing the cold snow below your feet. Whenever I snowboard in the Northeast of the U.S., I'm used to feeling like my face and extremities are on the verge of frostbite, and I've come to accept this discomfort as part of the experience. The snow became a little slushier in the afternoon, but the conditions were not bad for a day in late April. After multiple runs, the same two trails became monotonous and the excitement had diminished. The only alternative to those trails was to take on a black diamond from the peak of the mountain. I was intimidated by this option because I’m an intermediate snowboarder at best and I even hesitate to go on black diamonds on mountains in New England (which are more like ant hills in comparison to the Alps). We took a cable car up to the top just to check out the trail, and also because the top had an even more magnificent view. The summit was almost at the top of Europe. We could see Jungfrau, the actual “top of Europe” across the way, but we would have to pay an absurd 200 dollars to take a train there. Instead, we got the next best thing by paying for a lift ticket and still getting an awesome view. 

We couldn’t really judge the trail’s difficulty from the top of the trail. Being at the very top of the mountain reinvigorated my excitement so I felt a little more daring than usual and decided to give it a try. It wasn’t an immediate decision though. In fact Eric and I kept changing our minds, in opposition each time, so that one of us was ready to go for it while the other insisted on being a coward. Eventually, we just started going down. We slowly made our way down the foggy trail, only able to see as far as a couple feet ahead. Overall, it really wasn’t that bad. I certainly fell a couple times and looked like a fool, but luckily there was nobody else was on the trail at the time to judge me. After making a few more runs back at the first base, we called it a day. On the way down the mountain on the cable car, we stopped at a small village called Gimmelwald. It was another cute Alpine town made up of cabins, small shops, and farmland inserted on the side of the mountain. I bought another delicious bar of chocolate there that I enjoyed that afternoon.

There was a lot of parachuting.

We went back to the hostel and met up with Ali and Madeline. We were all feeling lazy so we hung around the hostel and ate chocolate. Just being in Switzerland made it excusable to eat an entire large bar of chocolate in one sitting. We sat outside and played a game of UNO. Meanwhile, two children from one of the Korean families were jumping on the trampoline in the hostel’s yard. Since we were previously unaware that it was available for use by hostel guests, we were eager to use it and patiently waited for them to get off. After about a half hour passed, we began devising schemes for how to get them off. Fortunately, their dad called them in for dinner before we took action. We all got on and had our fun until we were told to get off by the hostel owner, who feared that four full grown individuals on one trampoline would break it. We ate dinner (pasta), sitting amongst multiple Korean families once again, and concluded our evening with another exciting game of scrabble.

April 16, 2011

We packed up and took the train half way to Geneva, stopping in a town called Interlaken (literally meaning “in between lakes”). We walked around this town, first stopping at one of the big lakes which had a breathtaking view. We sat there for a while, chatted, and skipped rocks.

Interlaken

We then walked to the center of the town, encountering a couple of cows in someone’s yard on the way.

The cows were cute so we stopped to watch them in their usual habitat as they sat, scratched themselves, ate some grass, and excreted bodily fluids rather nonchalantly just as we started taking pictures of them. Fascinating creatures. We continued on our way and explored the town center briefly before we headed back to catch the train to Geneva.

We spent about an hour in Geneva before we took a bus to the Geneva airport. When I got back to London, it felt like home - especially Warren street station, the station that that was closest to my dorm and which I had become the most familiar with.